Health-related risk perceptions play an important role in motivating health behavior change, and empirical evidence suggests that there are three distinct types of risk perceptions: deliberative, affective, and intuitive,. For example, choice preference strength and readiness for action may be strongest among individuals when deliberative and affective perceptions Concluding remarks Importantly, existing models do not directly address the possibility of a more complex interplay between deliberative and affective influences, despite the fact that evidence suggests that the strength of the associations among deliberative and affective components of risk perceptions may be as important as the absolute magnitudes of those constructs. Note that accuracy of risk perceptions Associations and interactions among types of risk perceptions However, often individuals believe themselves to be at lower risk for outcomes than is warranted when examining their objective risk this phenomenon is termed ‘unrealistic optimism’. Although low risk perceptions are by definition optimistic, if an individual is indeed at low risk for a disease threat, those risk perceptions are also realistic. The formation of accurate - or inaccurate - risk perceptions may have important consequences for health. Deliberative risk perceptions are usually Accuracy of risk perceptions Theories that emphasize deliberative risk perceptions suggest that an individual relies on a number of reason-based strategies to derive an estimate of the likelihood that the negative outcome will occur. Deliberative risk perceptions are systematic, logical, and rule-based. Moreover, several studies suggest that dispositional and Types of risk perceptionsĬlassic health behavior theories largely treat risk perceptions as deliberatively derived judgments, and research synthesized thus far has fit this conceptualization. Indeed, evidence suggests that, in the general population, individuals are able to differentiate among specific threats when forming risk perceptions. Although risk perceptions can be optimistic (i.e., low) or pessimistic (i.e., high), they are empirically and conceptually distinct from general dispositional optimism, in part because they are domain-specific. Correlational evidence supports Formation of risk perceptionsĪ growing body of literature has probed how risk perceptions are formed. Motivation to forgo such pleasurable behaviors, or engage in inconvenient preventive behaviors, is believed to be driven to some extent by beliefs about the probability that a health consequence will occur. ![]() Behaviors contributing to disease initiation and progression are often pleasurable (e.g., smoking or overeating). In health decision-making, individuals are expected to navigate choices involving weighing risk for consequences with benefits of action. ![]() Section snippets Risk perceptions and health behavior
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |